Wednesday, February 18, 2015

While only about a tenth of Giuseppe Gioacchino Belli’s
2,279 Romanesco sonnets seem to be in
print in English, ample compensation for this paucity can be found in the
richness of the approaches and supplemental material of what is available in English. Several
translations have been made into dialect: by Peter Dale into Strine, an
Australian dialect; Harold Norse into Brooklynese; William Neill and Richard
Garioch into Scots. Others - Mike Stocks, Eleanor Clark, and former U.S. poet
laureate Miller Williams – may hew more closely to standard English, but the diversity
of directions they take in translating Belli’s eruptive language makes them all
worth reading. Williams’ book, Sonnets of Giuseppe Belli, includes the Romanesco originals on facing pages as
does Stocks’ Sonnets: Guiseppe Gioacchino Belli which also provides an
invaluable biographical sketch of Belli, a useful bibliography, a few
illustrations, and even, generously, a selection of Garioch’s translations into
Scots. Norse’s small book, The Roman Sonnets of Guiseppe Gioachino Belli,
has a cover design by collage/mail artist Ray Johnson and supplies readers with
both an appreciative preface by William Carlos Williams and a rich,
illuminating essay by Alberto Moravia, who situates Belli’s work in its Italian
historical and literary context, noting that, “If one thinks of Belli as the
contemporary, or practically so, of the first Romantic generation and of the
first naturalists, one can gauge what an extraordinary phenomenon his poetry
was.” A noticeable quality in some of this material is a palpably heavier
weight given by a few of these translators and essayists to Belli’s religious
irreverence and street cred, with one referring to the “diabolic” nature of
his language and another praising him as a poet of “blasphemy.” One translator who seems to make a more rounded assessment of Belli’s range,
talent and significance is Eleanor Clark, in a remarkably rich chapter in her
equally rich book, Rome and a Villa (incidentally, why this book doesn’t
routinely show up on lists of great travel writing in English is beyond me; a
chapter on Rome’s fountains alone gives a flavor of the Roman street possibly
unmatched by any writer since Belli himself). Clark puts forth a compelling
argument, one she acknowledges possesses a whiff of hyperbole but that she affirms
nonetheless, for Belli as one of the great writers not just of Italy and of his
time, but of all places and all times. Clark includes in her essay a number of
her own translations along with their Romanesco
originals and - a tremendous service none of the other translators seems to
have considered - a guide to the pronunciation and idiosyncrasies of Romanesco (though another guide to Romanesco – as well as a good number of
Belli’s sonnets - appears on Andrea Pollett’sVirtual Roma site). While at first glance the dialect may strike one as almost indecipherable,
Clark demonstrates the relative ease with which those with a basic knowledge of
Italian can approach it - the chief difficulty in translation being not the
dialect itself but approximation of Belli’s fiery energy and radically shifting
tone. Clark’s guide allows even those not fluent in Italian the possibility of
hearing the essential musicality of Belli’s sonnets. Those perhaps too timid to
try their Italian aloud can alternately turn to YouTube to hear a variety of
readers, including actorVittorio Gassman, read from Belli, or can try outMaurizio Mosetti’s Italian site, which includes some of Peter Dale’s sonnets with links
to audio files for a few versions in Romanesco.

Though Clark perhaps succeeds in taking the fullest measure
of Belli, her essay still misses being the most singular of these contributions,
an honor that must certainly go to Anthony Burgess’ short novel ABBA ABBA.
Taking Alberto Moravia’s comment about the extraordinary nature of Belli’s work
in contrast to his Romantic contemporaries and literalizing it to spectacular
effect, Burgess folds his own translations of 71 of Belli’s sonnets inside an
ingenious fictional account in which the author invents a brief meeting in Rome
in 1821 between Belli, the most realist of early 19th century poets,
who finds “God in cabbage patches and beer-stains on a tavern table,” and
English Romantic John Keats – that poet of “nature, romance, fairyland,
heartache, the classical world as seen in a rainy English garden.” Though the imagined
encounter takes place quickly – a collision of poetic souls beneath Michelangelo’s
Sistine Chapel frescoes that provokes questions concerning the purpose and
practice of art and poetry – the repercussions reach far.

ABBA ABBA derives its resonant title from three
sources: the rhyme scheme of the initial octave of the Petrarchan sonnet form;
Christ’s last words on the cross (“Father, father” or “Abba, Abba” in Aramaic);
and Burgess’ own initials (the words in fact appear on Burgess’ tomb). Burgess
weaves all three significances into his novel, most obviously by including Belli’s
sonnets and a couple by Keats, but also by presenting a moving portrait of
Keats dying of consumption while living above Rome’s Spanish Steps and,
finally, by a self-reflexive and fiendishly clever Nabokovian coda (readers are
cautioned to note that what appears to be an appendix actually carries the
title: “Two”).

In ABBA ABBA Burgess revels in language, playing
Keats’ ethereal lyricism against the street smart linguistic wantonness of
Belli’s Romanesco, and both against
mortality. The degree to which Burgess celebrates language is clear from his freely
dragging in other impressive linguistic displays - from Shakespeare to Robert Burton’s The Anatomy of Melancholy to the sermons of Jeremy Taylor – in
order to supplement the lyrical conversations and feverish monologues he
invents for the dying Keats and the tart, incisive repartee he summons for
Belli. He even has Keats make an awkward effort to translate a notorious sonnet
by Belli containing myriad Romanesco
slang words for penis (“What would the Edinburgh
Review say of this? Would Leigh Hunt print it in the Examiner and go to jail again on behalf of Free Speech?”), while on
Belli’s side Burgess places a coy appreciation of Keats’ famous sonnet on Mrs.
Reynolds’ cat, perhaps the closest the English poet ever came to Belli’s
insistence that the sonnet be brought “low,” dethroned from its “Petrarchan
coronation.” Nor does Burgess stop with English; a few sample lines of Carlo
Porta’s translation of Dante into Milanese dialect make it into the novel, as
does an evident relish on Burgess’ part in revealing attributes in English
poetry that derive from Italian and/or dialect - for example, having Keats
discover, via John Florio’s first Italian-English dictionary, A Worlde of
Wordes, a clue to Shakespeare’s own dialect: “and now it flashed on him
where the joke was in Falstaff’s words: ‘reasons are as plentiful as
blackberries.’ Of course: raisins.” The second part of the novel takes the form
of an afterward, offering a brief biography of and essay on Belli that, like
Clark’s, underscores the strikingly original, lively, vernacular quality of
Belli’s work and stressing his kinship with Gogol and influence on Joyce’s Ulysses.
The translations – selected entirely from Belli’s religiously-themed sonnets –
follow the brief, clever coda to which I’ve alluded above. The result of this
short, ingenious and audacious exercise (a mere 85 pages excepting the sonnets)
is a tour-de-force, a rapturous example of the literary novel about literature
and a terrific feat of conjuring, via imagination, Moravia’s observation.

All told, the approaches of Burgess and other translators to
Belli’s work can only amplify one’s enthusiasm for this exceptional Roman poet.
About all that’s needed now is publication of a full English translation of all
the sonnets. As Eleanor Clark points out, each sonnet by itself tells a story,
but the cumulative effect of reading them together provides an extraordinary
portrait of 19th century Rome. The welcome diversity of approaches taken so
far by translators suggests, however, that the sumptuous feast of a complete
collection might well benefit from having more than a few cooks. In the
meantime, what’s here already in English is more than enough to whet one’s
appetite.

Friday, February 13, 2015

I’ve been having a ball learning about Roman poet Giuseppe
Gioacchino Belli (1791-1863). Belli is, from first glance, a striking writer,
and at second glance even more captivating. The Internet offers a good deal of
information about him and examples of his work; while I hesitate to add to that
considerable accretion, I do so in an access of enthusiasm and a desire to
proselytize: Belli is a writer worth getting to know and too little known. The
attention paid to him seems undeservedly piecemeal despite his having had
prominent and ardent admirers including, to name but a few, Anthony Burgess, James Joyce and Nikolai Gogol, who
likely heard the poet recite his poems in one of Rome’s taverns. Save for a single sonnet, Belli was unpublished during his
lifetime, but apparently developed a significant reputation through publicly
reciting his poems. Here are a couple:

A Miraculous Relic (Mike
Stocks, translator)

This much I know: among the rare sensations

and relics that the Popes have gathered for

the prefect of the Sacristy to store

in holy shrines with the authentications,

Christ’s foreskin – plus his other little bits

and vital members – is the pride and joy;

as relics go it’s just the real McCoy,

and any other relic looks like shit

compared…Now then, my dear good sir, don’t say

this holy foreskin also seems to hail

from other countries which lay claim to it;

have faith my man, have faith, a little bit.

there could be eighty foreskins? Fine, okay -

perhaps it grew and grew, like fingernails.

What Might Have Been (Anthony
Burgess, translator)

There’d be, if Adam hadn’t sold our stock

Preferring disobedience to riches,

No sin or death for us poor sons of bitches.

Man would range free, powerless to shame or shock,

And introduce all women to his cock,

Without the obstacles of skirt and breeches,

Spreading his seed immeasurably, which is

To say: all round the world, all round the clock.

The beast would share the happy lot of men,

Despite a natural plenitude of flies.

There’d be no threats of Doomsday coming when

Christ must conduct the dreadful last assize.

Instead, the Lord would look in now and then,

Checking our needs, renewing our supplies.

Though sonnets like the above may initially appear to share
some of the “shock value” of Antonio Beccadelli’sThe Hermaphrodite, Belli,
writing 400 years later, is as a poet by magnitudes more serious, talented and,
perhaps surprisingly, devout. Despite an acidic wit aimed at the church in many
of his poems, they contain an undercurrent of piety and faith. Though Belli
mercilessly mocks Pope Gregory XVI in a number of sonnets, he later defended
the Pope against a political challenge and even, towards the end of his life, worked
for the church as a theater censor, redacting racier passages from Shakespeare
and Italian opera. In a life marked by traumatic family losses and mercurial
swings in solvency, Belli was a devoted husband and father. Belli did, though,
resemble Beccadelli in one aspect: he too came to renounce his verses, even
ordering that his oeuvre be burned. Fortunately
for posterity, the friend and confessor with whom he entrusted his manuscripts ignored
this request.

Belli wrote copiously in standard Italian throughout his
life, including many religious poems and his own zibaldone – a collection of encyclopedia-type essays about all
manner of phenomena – that stretched to more than 11 volumes. However, his
renown comes almost entirely from the sonnets he put into Romanesco, the Roman dialect, after having been inspired by the
Milanese dialect poetry of his contemporary Carlo Porta. Setting out with no
less a project than to recreate the Rome of his time in sonnets, Belli wrote 2,279
of these dialect poems. They spread across a vast range of subjects of daily
life, not just “the six P’s” for which Rome was famous - “popes, priests,
princes, prostitutes, parasites, and the poor” - but also dogs, cats, colds, religious
relics, butcher’s shops, advertising, graffiti, empty rituals, lecherous
sextons, public executions, winter, beautiful weather, seduction, secrets, small
talk, gossip, circumcision, the callous rich, lonely beggars, the annunciation,
Abraham’s sacrifice, pregnancy, exhausted mothers, the difficulty of getting
children to sleep, Noah’s ark, the rapture, the lottery, food, hunger, and even
a sonnet about the pain women can experience in breast-feeding.

These sonnets seem like almost nothing else: raw, energetic,
caustic, irreverent, comical, daring, sarcastic, cynical, drawing on a long
satirical tradition in Italian literature and on the bawdy irreverence of the poesia giocosa of the Middle Ages. Many
lance the hypocrisy in the institutional Catholic church and the sense of
entitlement of the wealthy - sometimes within the same poem:

The Two Human Species (Eleanor
Clark, translator)

We, you know, were brought into the world

Kneaded in shit and garbage.

Merit, manners and stature

Are all stuff of the gentry

To His Excellency, to His Majesty, to His Highness

Vanities, phoney medals, titles and luxuries;

And for us craftsmen and servants

The stick, the load and the halter.

Christ made houses and palaces

For the prince, the marquis and the knight

And the earth for us ass-faces

And when he died on the cross, he thought

To spill, in his goodness, among such tortures

For them his blood and for us the whey.

Belli’s range, though, is both vertical and horizontal; he
can shift suddenly from lancing wit and prurient content to a remarkable empathy
and insight into suffering - sober, even bitter, glimpses of the struggle of
his fellow Romans to survive amid poverty and squalor. Where in some sonnets he can display a rancor
towards women bordering on misogyny, in others he seems unusually attuned and
sympathetic to the travails of poor women, particularly mothers:

The variety of topics is nearly matched by that of Belli’s experimental
approaches to the sonnets and by their daring linguistic diversity. Belli
incorporates proverbs, street slang, onomatopoeia, and an enormous variety of
voices, from smooth-talking prostitutes to shop owners, from beggars to the
rich, from lowly prelates to the Pope himself. Some sonnets get conveyed entirely
in dialogue, others in monologue, a couple in baby talk, another by a stutterer,
yet another in mocking imitation of bad poetry. Nearly all, as Eleanor Clark
observes, present a story or form a vignette, as in the following where the
reader can envision a copy writer spelling out the words aloud as he pens an
advertisement:

Advertisement (Harold
Norse, translator)

Got-rox-th-Ven-ble-Rev-rnd-Mo-nas-ste-ry

Of-St-Cos-ma comma
& Da-mi-an

To-se-ll comma
or-re-nt-o-ne-l-rge-flo-or

Of-o-ne-of-his-hou-ses
comma &th-en-ti-re

Or-ch-rd comma
whi-ch-fa-ces-to-th-hi-gh-er

Si-de comma
at-num-br-th-ree-fo-ur

Of-Ex-ca-va-ti-on-Al-ley-by-th-ce-me-te-ry

Of-St-Sp-i-rit comma
wi-th-o-pen-sp-a-ce

Fr-a-st-all semi colon
gi-ves-not-ice

To-a-ll comma
&sun-dry-ap-pli-ca-nts

Comma
th-at-t-mr-row-at-th-pre-c-ise

Ho-ur-of-fi-ve-p-m-be-ad-vi-sed

By-th-Not-ry-of-th-si-te-Mr
Bri-gand….

Shove it; and I’ll put in the full point.

Once one starts reading Belli’s Romanesco sonnets, it’s hard to stop. I’ll end here with another poem
on a religious theme, one that captures the deft combination of hard-edged wit,
underlying religiosity, and ultimate pessimism that Belli exhibits in his work: